How AGORA Edge boosted cutting room productivity with Vector iX2

Founded in 1985 in St. Petersburg, Florida, AGORA has evolved from a custom holster manufacturer into a global producer of technical soft goods for fire & safety, medical wearable devices, and mobile computing. 

The company works with a wide range of advanced materials, including Kevlar, Nomex, Cordura, laminated composites, and conductive textiles—each requiring high precision and specialized handling. As product customization increased, the cutting room became a bottleneck, limiting the company’s ability to scale. 

Agora needed to increase production capacity while preserving strict quality standards required by safety- and medical-critical applications. At the same time, manual and die-cutting processes struggled to keep pace with evolving demands and complex geometries.

Key challenges included:

• Transitioning from manual to digital cutting processes
• Managing fray-prone and high-performance materials
• Meeting tighter lead times without compromising precision
• Reducing repetitive tasks while improving operator efficiency

To overcome these challenges, AGORA partnered with Lectra and invested in the Vector iX2, a cutting system designed for flexibility, speed, and precision in low-ply production environments.

Following the successful implementation of its first system, the company expanded its capabilities by adding a second Vector iX2—demonstrating confidence in the technology’s performance and scalability.

The Vector iX2 enabled AGORA to modernize its cutting room, replacing legacy processes with a streamlined, automated workflow capable of handling diverse materials and complex applications.

The decision was driven by several key advantages:

• High-speed cutting performance with continuous processing
• Capability to cut complex geometries and technical fabrics
• Reduced downtime through dynamic vacuum technology
• Versatility to process advanced and conductive materials

Deployment was seamless, allowing teams to quickly transition from installation to full production. Beyond the equipment itself, the collaboration with Lectra ensured long-term success through ongoing support, proactive upgrades, and expert guidance. This partnership approach enabled AGORA to continuously adapt its cutting operations to evolving business needs and product complexity.

With the iX2, we’ve been able to expand into more complex textiles, increase production volumes, and achieve cuts that weren’t possible before. Installation was seamless—we were in production almost immediately.

Willy Santoyo, Manufacturing Engineer, AGORA

The adoption of the Vector iX2 delivered immediate and measurable improvements across AGORA Edge’s operations. The cutting room became faster, more reliable, and significantly more productive, enabling the company to handle high-mix production while maintaining consistent quality. By automating and optimizing cutting processes, AGORA unlocked new levels of efficiency and responsiveness.

Key results include:

• Reduction in cutting time from 40 hours to approximately 12 hours per week for certain jobs
• Over 200 % increase in efficiency compared to previous equipment
• Up to 4× productivity gains in selected workflows
• Minimal downtime and improved operational reliability
• Greater capacity for high-mix, low-volume production

These improvements translated into shorter lead times and enhanced customer responsiveness, critical for industries where precision and delivery timelines are essential. Additionally, automation allowed the company to reallocate labor toward higher-value tasks such as quality control and assembly, supporting both employee development and better working conditions. The ability to maintain high consistency across complex materials also strengthened AGORA's reputation for delivering reliable, high-performance products.